The story of Amira’s disappearance and presumed death was retold with sympathy for Ali: he had known tragedy in his foreshortened life. The fact that the lost princess had been the killer’s sister was treated as the kind of bizarre interrelationship that occurred often in the backward, byzantine Middle East. Malik’s defense was straightforward. He had come home unexpectedly and found his old business enemy, Ali. They exchanged words, and Ali attacked him. Nearly strangled, Malik managed to fight his way free. Ali fell to his knees, his back to Malik, but his movements made Malik believe he was reaching for a weapon. Malik drew his gun and began pulling the trigger.

He could offer support for this version of events. First, Ali undeniably was in Malik’s home, apparently uninvited. Second, medical evidence showed that Malik had indeed been badly choked. On the other hand, no weapon had been found on Ali. And more damning than anything else, three bullets in the back didn’t look like self-defense, even for a one-armed man.

The district attorney, making a great show of fair-mindedness in a tele- vised news conference, announced that he would not seek an indictment for first-degree homicide, only for second-degree.

That was the charge the grand jury brought.

Unlike some of the notorious trials in recent California history—the Menendez brothers, the Simpson case—People v. Malik Badir would not be a long, drawn-out proceeding. Malik not only admitted to the shooting but ordered his two celebrated and very expensive lawyers to use no delaying tactics. The questioning of witnesses would be brief. In fact, no one claimed to have seen the struggle or the killing.

True, one of Malik’s bodyguards had vanished and was rumored to be in al-Remal, as were Ali’s two men—who, it turned out, had diplomatic immunity anyway—but none of this was admissible as evidence.

All of Malik’s other employees had been elsewhere than at the pool. His daughter had been asleep.

His houseguest, Dr. Jenna Sorrel, had been in the library, searching for a book, when she heard the shots. She knew nothing else of the matter.

That was the story Malik had whispered to her in the minutes before the police arrived.

“Promise me you’ll tell them that, Sister. This can’t hurt me. An inconve- nience. But it could ruin your life—and Karim’s.”

It was so simple and easy, and she was terrified and in shock. Then, once she had told the lie for the first time, she felt as if there was no going back. Through hours of questioning by homicide detectives, she never wavered.

Now she was wavering.

She had killed Ali. And she was, at last, free of the fear that haunted her for so many years. Why should Malik risk ruin, no matter what obsessive ideas he had about protecting his loved ones? He was confident of acquittal, but what if he were wrong?